By Sam Draut–

After starting three different quarterbacks in consecutive weeks and opening the year 0-3, Louisville finds itself in Nashville, Tennessee playing against Texas A&M in the Music City Bowl to finish off the 2015 season.

The Cardinals (7-5) sixth consecutive bowl appearance may have been in doubt throughout the year, but the resilient roster ended the regular season winning five of its last six games.

Coach Bobby Petrino’s starting spots are filled with just five seniors, so while the team spent bowl practices preparing for Texas A&M (8-4), the young roster re-acclimated itself with Petrino’s style of play.

“We took the first part of the bowl preparation and went back and did an installation to try to really coach the young guys and re-teach our young players that are on the team,” Petrino said.

One player who benefited from the additional practices is Lamar Jackson. The freshman quarterback appeared in eleven games and started six of them.

In Louisville’s season finale against in-state rival Kentucky, Jackson replaced Kyle Bolin after Louisville fell behind 21-0 in the first quarter. Jackson gashed the Kentucky defense for 186 rushing yards and two touchdowns, many of the runs coming off of the read-option.

But throughout the 13 practices in preparation for the bowl game, offensive coordinator Garrick McGee said Jackson worked on becoming more of a true quarterback. Jackson worked on fundamentals and running the offense under center.

“He has a much better grasp right now than he did after the Kentucky game about the way our concepts and our protections and things really work,” McGee said. “I think you’ll see some development from him in the game tomorrow, as being a true quarterback.”

 

 

Jackson completed 123 of 221 passes (55.66%) for 1613 yards and ten touchdowns. He averaged 146.6 yards in eleven games and threw eight interceptions. Jackson also rushed for 734 yards and nine touchdowns, averaging 5.2 yards per carry.

Petrino announced weeks ago that Jackson would be the starting quarterback for the Music City Bowl.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the two quarterbacks who played a majority of the snaps for Texas A&M transferred after the regular season.

Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray combined for 2,896 passing yards and 22 touchdowns, but left the program, leaving coach Kevin Sumlin to resort to his third-string quarterback, Jake Hubenak.

Hubenak is a junior-college transfer and played in five games this season, completing 12 of 27 passes for 92 yards.

Sumlin said Hubenak has an even-keeled, level-headedness that is valuable for a quarterback taking over an offense so late in the year.

“He’s gone through some things a little different than some of the other players, and now with his time and his turn,” Sumlin said. “He’s been at another university, a junior college, an older guy that’s traveled around a little bit. He’s used to adversity and I think he’s handled it well so far.”

Beyond the quarterback position, Louisville’s defense will look to slow down 1,000 yard rusher Tra Carson. The senior running back scored six touchdowns and averaged 4.8 yards per carry this year.

“When you look at the players that they have, up front, they are young, but they have got talent and they have gotten better throughout the year and they work hard to finish blocks,” defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. “They have got a downhill runner that can move and it turn a three- or four-yard gain into a six-, seven- or eight-yard gain or double-digit run.”

Louisville and Texas A&M share one common opponent from the 2015 season: Auburn.

The Cardinals fell to Auburn 31-24 in the opening week of the season at the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta, Georgia while Texas A&M lost to Auburn 26-10 late in the year.

Petrino and Sumlin have known each other for over 20 years, but they have never coached against each other. Both coaches look forward to going up against each other as head coaches on opposite sidelines for the first time in their career.

 

“This is a fun game for me, because I met Kevin a long time ago, he was coaching at Washington State and I was coaching at Idaho,” Petrino said. “We would hang out a little bit together and have some fun. Ever since that time, I followed his career and get his film from every season, see what I can steal from him. So it’s fun to be able to coach against each other.”

In his eleventh season as a head coach, this year was the first time a Petrino coached team fell to 0-3.

But, the Cardinals were able to win seven of its last nine games and became just the 22nd team in Football Bowl Subdivision since 1980 to start a season 0-3 and play in a bowl game.

“What you do is you just prepare on a weekly basis, and it challenges your beliefs, there’s no question about that. And it challenges attitudes in the locker room. Losing is hard. It’s hard on everybody,” Petrino said. “But that’s why I think that I have so much respect for our team and for our players that we never experience bad attitudes. Our guys continue to work hard, continue to like going to practice and being in the meeting rooms. And we were able to turn it around.”

Now, Louisville looks to a cap off the 2015 season with the program’s tenth bowl victory.